Cherokee TV

Fish traps on Etowah River and other waterways is topic for August 19 presentation

CTV STAFF
Monday, August 18, 2008

Fish trap researchers looking over diagram

Bill Frazier, center, is the guest speaker for the August 19 membership meeting of the Cherokee County Historical Society. He joined veteran amateur archeologists Dan Page, left, and Brian Babcock at the Etowah River immediately after they completed a survey of the Gumbert Weir in the Buffington community on August 16. Page is president and Babcock is vice president of  the Georgia Mountains Archaeological Society, which documents historical sites in the region.

The August 19 membership meeting of the Cherokee County Historical Society will feature Bill Frazier, a retired federal game warden who has visited and studied Native American fish traps in waterways throughout Georgia  for two decades.

The meeting is slated to begin Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Rock Barn, 658 Marietta Highway in Canton.

Fish weirs, or fish traps, in North Georgia were used by Native American and later settlers, Frazier said during a recent short lecture near the Etowah River east of Canton. Fish traps were outlawed by Georgia in 1930, he said.

Typically designed as V-shaped rock walls, the fish traps are still visible in waterways throughout Georgia, Frazier said during the August 16 tour of a fish trap in the Etowah River in the Buffington community. The event was co-sponsored by the Cherokee County Historical Society and the Upper Etowah River Alliance, a waterway protection organization.

The Etowah River fish trap located near Canton will be designated in documents submitted to state historic natural resources officials as the Gumbert Weir, Frazier said. Eva Gumbert hosted the fish weir tour at her Buffington community farm that fronts the river. Gumbert is a member of the Upper Etowah River Alliance board of directors. 

The Gumbert Weir seemingly is a fish trap constructed by settlers in the Cherokee County area, Frazier said. That opinion is shared by amateur archaelogists Dan Page and Brian Babcock, officers in the Georgia Mountains Archaelogical Society.

Page and Babcock waded into the river to measure the structure as they prepared documents to submit to Georgia historic preservation offices for recording the structure at the Gumbert farm.

For more information on the August 19 meeting, call the Cherokee County Historical Society at (770) 345-3288. The organization's Web site is www.rockbarn.org.

Gumbert Weir

Gumbert Weir in the Etowah River